Robert Petit, the International Co-Prosecutor, is resigning effective September 1: In a statement, Robert Petit said he would be stepping down as of 1 September for personal and family reasons. “It has been the greatest privilege of my career to have the opportunity to bring some justice to the victims of the crimes of the Khmer Rouge,” he said. “I remain convinced...
Apparently, that bastion of freedom and human rights didn't get the memo that Holmes' infamous comment in Buck v. Bell -- that "three generations of imbeciles are enough" -- isn't exactly viewed as a shining moment in US constitutional jurisprudence: Rwanda is being urged to drop a draft law which would forcibly sterilise people who are mentally disabled. US-based campaign group Human...
After more than a decade of legal wrangling, Chile has finally ratified the Rome Statute. Chile's accession means that every country in South America is now a member of the ICC -- a significant accomplishment. Congratulations, Chile!...
I have posted a new essay on SSRN: "Completion Strategies and the Office of the Prosecutor." The essay is my contribution to a multi-year research workshop at Catholic University Leuven on the history of the prosecutor in international criminal law; the workshop will culminate in a book to be published by Oxford in 2010. Here is the abstract: With the exception...
A quick update on the OTP's efforts to include genocide charges in Bashir's arrest warrant. Pre-Trial Chamber I has now granted leave to appeal the issue I've discussed before -- whether it misunderstood Article 58's "reasonable grounds" requirement when it rejected the genocide charges. It's a very defensive decision, almost certainly written by Judge Steiner, who is the only holdover from...
Omri Casspi has become the first Israeli basketball player to be selected in the first round of the NBA draft. Casspi was drafted #23 by the Sacramento Kings, which also feature players from Spain (Sergio Rodriguez), Argentina (Andres Nocioni), and Slovenia (Beno Udrih). Basketball fans know that Casspi's Israeli team, Maccabi Tel Aviv, is one of the world's best. The team...
So, it looks like Britney Spears may be back on the silver screen in the near future -- in a Holocaust movie: Spears...
Saree Makdisi, a professor of comparative literature at UCLA and an old friend from the literature program at Duke, has a superb editorial in today's Los Angeles Times about the media's -- and thus our -- use of language concerning Israel and Palestine. Here's a taste: In the U.S., discussion of Palestinian politicians and political movements often relies on a spectrum...
With the number of the exonerated now at 240, giving prisoners the right to prove their innocence through DNA testing would risk “unnecessarily overthrowing the established system of criminal justice.” It might lead to a reasonably accurate one....
As most people probably know by now, the Washington Post, completely overburdened by liberals like Charles Krauthammer, Bill Kristol, George Will, Jim Hoagland, Michael Gerson, Robert Kagan, Fred Hiatt, David Broder, Richard Cohen, John Bolton, Joe Lieberman, and Douglas Feith, has fired Dan Froomkin, author of the wonderful blog White House Watch. Froomkin has yet to say anything about his firing, other than that...
David Bernstein is back with another attack on Human Rights Watch. This time, he's up in arms that an HRW official had the temerity to criticize Israel in Saudi Arabia during a fundraising dinner: A delegation from Human Rights Watch was recently in Saudi Arabia. To investigate the mistreatment of women under Saudi Law? To campaign for the rights of homosexuals,...
Scott Horton has a typically must-read post today at Harpers.com on Jose Padilla's lawsuit against John Yoo, which, happily, just survived a motion to dismiss and appears to be headed to trial. Scott takes apart the state-secrets defense advanced by both Yoo and -- predictably -- the secrecy-obsessed Obama administration. Here's a taste: In seeking dismissal, Yoo argued that the case...
